Canceling Military Exercises Hurts Us, Not Our Enemies
The Bulwark · C · trust 33/100
Will U.S. forces in South Korea still be ready to ‘fight tonight’?
Mark Hertling August 17 Upgrade to listen 10 minutes 135 33 19 U.S. soldiers stand on a boat connected to a floating bridge during a South Korea–U.S. combined river-crossing drill as part of the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise in Yeoju on August 27, 2025. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images) PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP announced Sunday that he had instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce U.S. military exercises with South Korea, just as American and South Korean forces were preparing to begin one of their most important annual training events. Trump complained about the cost, suggested the exercises were unnecessarily provocative toward North Korea, and, astonishingly, connected his decision to South Korea’s refusal to support his administration’s effort to denuclearize Iran.
It is difficult to imagine a more thorough misunderstanding of the purpose of a military exercise—or an alliance.
The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise begins Monday—otherwise Trump suggested he might have canceled this year’s event. But his direction raises questions about future exercises and, more importantly, about his understanding of why American forces train with allies. These exercises aren’t diplomatic favors Washington grants. They are part of the preparation required to deter—and, if necessary, defeat—an attack by North Korea.
The Korean Peninsula remains one of the most dangerous military environments in the world. About 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea, facing a North Korean regime with a massive conventional military, nuclear weapons, sophisticated ballistic missiles, and forces that have gained recent battlefield experience alongside Russia in Ukraine. North Korea continues testing missiles and improving its nuclear capabilities while repeatedly threatening South Korea and the United States. That’s why generations of American soldiers have trained in Korea—including me.
Come for the hot takes. Stay for the sharp analysis and insightful commentary. Or vice versa!
IN THE LATE 1990s, I commanded an Army brigade at Fort Lewis, Washington, now Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Our brigade was part of the reinforcement plan for the 2nd Infantry Division in case war broke out on the Korean Peninsula. That mission meant much more than putting soldiers and equipment on airplanes and ships and deploying them west across the Pacific. We had to understand how we would get there, what we would do when we arrived, and how we would fight alongside the South Korean forces already defending their country.
We repeatedly rehearsed the enormously complicated logistical undertaking of moving an armored brigade 5,000 miles across the Pacific and unloading our equipment at the ports, and we practiced gunnery and maneuver on Korean ranges and training areas. We designed our missions around the Korean terrain—dominated by mountains with tight maneuver corridors, speckled with dense population centers, connected by limited road networks—and even the extremes of Korean weather.
But some of the most valuable training involved something harder to measure on a readiness chart: learning how to operate with our Korean allies.
American and Korean soldiers have different languages, military traditions, equipment, procedures, and ways of approaching problems. Those differences don’t disappear when governments sign a treaty. They must be worked through on training fields, in command posts, during planning sessions, and through repeated exercises. We learned how Korean commanders operated, and they learned how we operated. We developed relationships that allowed soldiers and leaders to understand one another before people were shooting at them.
The Korean Augmentation to the United States Army program was particularly important. Korean soldiers (“KATUSAs”) served inside American formations, providing capabilities and cultural understanding while strengthening the bonds between the two armies. To Americans who served in Korea or trained with Korean forces, KATUSAs were fellow soldiers and part of our team, just as we were part of theirs.
That experience taught me something applicable to every military alliance: Interoperability doesn’t happen because politicians announce it. It must be practiced.
Exercises and training expose what doesn’t work. Communications systems fail to connect. Logistics plans prove unrealistic. Units arrive late. Intelligence doesn’t move quickly enough between headquarters. Ammunition, fuel, maintenance, medical support, and transportation become bottlenecks. Commanders discover that assumptions made while looking at maps don’t hold up when they meet actual terrain. It’s far better to discover those problems during an exercise than under a North Korean artillery barrage.
Today’s American–South Korean military relationship is even more integrated than it was when my brigade trained for Korea. The 2nd Infantry Division is now the 2nd Infantry Division/ROK-U.S. Combined Division, the Army’s only multinational division. American and Korean forces operate through command arrangements refined over decades, and their mission is captured in the phrase familiar to virtually every American soldier who has served on the peninsula: “Fight Tonight.”
That’s not just a slogan. North Korean artillery, missiles, special operations forces, cyber capabilities, and nuclear weapons don’t allow for the luxury of spending several weeks figuring out command relationships after a crisis begins.
That is why exercises such as Ulchi Freedom Shield matter. They rehearse command and control, intelligence, logistics, maneuver, air and missile defense, medical support, cyber operations, and reinforcement. Increasingly, they also address drones, GPS jamming, electronic warfare, and other aspects of a rapidly changing battlefield.
TRUMP HAS LONG VIEWED these exercises differently, describing them as expensive…
Read the original at The Bulwark →
Open in TruthVane →